Beautiful Mistake
by Missy Jade
Summary: [AU, WIP] In the aftermath of Ryan's wedding to Greenlee, Kendall finds herself coping with a new connection to David Hayward, and later finding herself fighting to untangle Babe Carey's lies... [KendallRyan, RyanGreenlee, GreenleeDavid]
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, because I sure as Hell wish I did to fix everything.  
Pairing: Kendall/Ryan, Ryan/Greenlee, Greenlee/David; other assorted couples  
Teaser: Change one thing, and you change everything... in the aftermath of the Greenlee and Ryan nuptuals, Kendall instead finds herself nursing a scary new friendship with David Hayward and later landing in the middle of a tangled web of lies revolving around two babies, and Babe Carey's lies...  
AN: This is going to be big, and emotional, and will start off in the future, as it were... next chapter will be when the fic 'officially' starts...  
_

_

* * *

_

_Well, your photo stills  
In your wallet with your unpaid bills  
And you show it like it means something  
You could never know the pain it brings_

_Now you come around  
Now you come around  
Your familiar sounds  
We are your beautiful,  
We are your beautiful mistake._

_Waiting for this day  
Well I memorized the things I'd say_

_It echoes through the years  
As if I could forget all a mother's tears_

_Now you come around  
Now you come around  
Your familiar sounds  
We are your beautiful mistake_

_- Better Than Ezra, 'Beautiful Mistake'_

_-_

_Prologue:_

_December, 2004_

_-_

_Coffee always tasted the worst in hospitals._

_Even when you brought the coffee from somewhere else, it still tasted horrible when you got it into the hospital._

_Kendall blamed it on the hospital itself, and was happy in her blaming of the hospital, a place she had long since grown sick of._

_Still, at least a Florida hospital was a nice change of scenery, right?_

_Grimacing, resisting the urge to spit the stuff out, Kendall set the Styrofoam cup on the table and smoothed a hand down the fabric of her dress, glancing nervously at the older man before her, watching with shuttered eyes as he licked the tip of his pen and scratched down something on his notepad, nodding to himself._

_By the time he finally looked up at her, her fingers were knotting in her lap and she was trying to stare past him and get Zach's attention in a pathetic hope that, just maybe, he'd be able to handle this for her. He was on his cell, though, and also carrying a conversation with one of his little helpers so she gave up and looked back at Mr. 'Just-call-me-Bill' police officer man._

_She was in Florida, talking to a Bill—that had been her father's name._

"_Ms. Hart, I just have a few questions—"_

"_Of course," she babbled, hating how odd her voice sounded with unshed emotion and forcing her hands to still in her lap, forcing herself to meet his eyes without wavering. "Anything you need to know," she added more nervously, and he gave her a small grin, probably an attempt to calm her down that failed miserably._

"_You and Mr. Hayward—"_

"_Dr. Hayward—"_

"_I apologize; you and Dr. Hayward set up this entire thing, at the hotel?"_

"_No, my sister did—" She stopped, hesitated, and then exhaled, pressing fingertips against her forehead to try to alleviate the pressure building there. "What I mean is, my sister came up with this, because she was trying to help that—Babe Carey," snapped, catching herself a second before saying something a bit less graceful about that baby-stealing bitch. "But David and I— well, we needed to get everybody in a place where we could handle things, where we could give Bianca the proof and force her to listen— and make that— make Babe admit to everything she did."_

"_So this was some kind of trap?"_

_The term was the worst he could have used, and she closed her eyes, fighting back the crushing weight of her guilt, that it all ended like this, even with all they had done to fix this, what Babe Carey and her white-trash mother had done the last nine months. "Yeah, it was a trap," she finally whispered raggedly, and he seemed to jot it down, pen flying across paper as she took the moment she had to lick her emotional wound, hating that it had ended like this._

_That, even if the worst happened, it would always be worth it because Bianca was holding Miranda, and that made everything worth it._

"_Ms. Hart?"_

_She jerked her head back, tearing her eyes from the sight some feet away to meet the pleasant-faced man in front of her, blinking her way past her confusion and finding his stare harder than before. "I'm sorry?" she finally managed and he shrugged slightly, exhaling. "According to the doctors, he's still in surgery, Ms. Hart."_

_She knew that, of course she knew that. She swallowed, pressing her palms against her face and feeling heated, scowling as she realized that David had been right in his suggestion to go to the hotel, and get some sleep. God knows her sleeping habits had been less than healthy the last nine months—_

"—_and I'm just wondering when all this started, Ms. Hart."_

_Kendall stared at him, really stared at him, and then closed her eyes, exhaustion wearing at her edges until she was jolted back into awareness with her own thoughts, and she looked back at him, managing a weak but sincere smile, edged in heartache but still there, somehow. "Nine months ago, but I didn't realize it until a few weeks ago, and then—"_

—_and then David and I did what we had to do._

"_And then you set this up? Did it ever occur to you to just tell you sister?"_

"_We told her, I told her, okay? I held her hands and I told her Miranda was alive and she wouldn't believe me, she refused to think Babe could do something that horrible to her," she added more quietly, heart aching at the remembrance at that anger, Bianca's furious tirade against all who stood against Babe. "And she didn't believe you?"_

_He sounded doubtful, and she couldn't blame him, grinning tiredly at him as she shook wayward curls over her shoulder. "She told me, in no uncertain terms, who she trusted, and it wasn't her big sister, Bill." She plucked the coffee up from the table, swallowed a big mouthful to beat back down the sudden taste of hurt in her throat, a bitter something that made the coffee seem sweet by comparison. "David and I… we all ended up here."_

_Here, in a hospital, drinking bitter coffee to beat back emotional hurt, counting down the minutes until she let herself head back to the hotel to hold Miranda, who made everything worth it, in the end, no matter how it all ended. Miranda, who she had back now, back in Bianca's arms, waiting for it to fix everything that had so horrifically gone wrong in the last nine months._

"_David and I— we did what we had to do."_

"_Yeah… but how did it get this bad? I mean, one man's in surgery, and how was that in any way part of your plan with Dr. Hayward?" He licked the pen again, staring at her intently, not hatefully, but sharply, as if he was waiting for the punch line, and again, she couldn't blame him, with everything going on around them._

"_Bill, I wish this made sense."_

"_Do you?"_

"_You have no idea, Bill."_


	2. Chapter 2

_I played the fool today  
I just dream of vanishing into the crowd  
Longing for home again  
Home, is a feeling I buried in you _

I'm alright, I'm alright  
It only hurts when I breathe

_- Melissa Etheridge, 'Breathe'_

_-_

_Chapter One_

_-_

_Lips twitching in amusement at the slightly baffled tone, David glanced sideways at the officer, even more amused at the look of confusion on the younger man's face. "I've been arrested enough that the power of authority doesn't work on me," he finally confided, and bit back his grin at the slight look of relief that crossed the officer's face that it was technically David's fault and not his._

_At this point, he had more caffeine than blood in his body, so he resisted the urge to go grab himself more coffee._

_Downright unhealthy, too much coffee, he absently thought, reaching up to rub at his eyes, leaning against the wall, soothing himself with the hustle and bustle of the early morning hospital. It wasn't PVH, but it was similar in a way that he as grateful for, a small something to steady himself after the last…_

_It was something._

"_I just have some questions."_

"_Questions from Bo Buchanan, of course," he chirped, and the young man gave him an odd look, apparently startled, which only made David chuckle slightly, never getting tired of the face people made when they realized he wasn't as dumb as they wished he was. It was like they ignored the simple fact of who he was, and he had yet to understand why. "Questions about the kid I saw in the hotel."_

"_You saw—"_

"_Yeah, little thing, blonde and blue-eyed… adorable, really."_

"_But, you saw—"_

"_Sitting in a stroller not fifteen feet away, if my depth perception's correct," he replied, watching as the young officer's mouth dropped open slightly, looking stunned. "Of course, I was trying to catch Babe Carey at the time, so I wasn't quite able to run after the baby, and by the time I could…"_

"_But— but you saw—"_

"_Blonde and blue-eyed, the baby on the news? Yeah… fifteen feet away, being pushed around in a cheap excuse for a stroller."_

-

The emptiness, and the now-familiar nightmare that brought it, was more than she could bear.

Heart trembling, she watched with wounded eyes as booze splashed into the small glasses, smooth glass shining in the low lights of the bar and she pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead, drawing a ragged breath that only seemed to make the pain worse, which shouldn't have actually been possible.

She must have done something horrible, in a past life, for this devastating pressure to keep building like it was.

Accepting the offered glass, she swept curls back from her face and then swallowed it back, hard and fast, body jolting at the taste with a grateful shudder. Eyes tightly closed, breathing oddly, she set the glass down, empty, weaving on the stool as the alcohol settled into her system, an edged comfort.

Letting her body adjust, she finally lifted the next one, shifting her head a few times on her neck before swallowing that one down as well, more carefully, eyes rolling close as her stomach lurched within her in warning. It took longer for this one to settle, but it finally did and with a long sigh, she dropped the glass to the bar, pressing her hands against her face and catching her breath.

"You want something gentler?"

The look she shot the guy in front of her was answer enough and, shrugging quickly to disperse the hate rays she was sending at him, he obeyed her silent order and filled several more glasses until, with a mutter, she snatched the bottle and pointed somewhere other than where he was, glaring.

He left her be, heading to the other end of the bar and, putting the bottle in front of her to sit until she needed it, she got to work on the next shots, each one taking longer to sink into her until, with a final shudder, she moved more smoothly, aching heart grown numb and slim body reaching its point of no return.

Here's hoping a car hit her and put her out of her misery on the way out.

"Oh, my God…"

She finished the shot in her hand, setting the glass down with careful force, passing a trembling hand across her face before she turned, finding herself the focus of little Maggie Stone's wide-eyed horrified gaze, mouth slightly agape. "Maggie," she finally stated, nodding as if this was completely normal for them to meet in a bar.

"Are you drunk?"

"You damn right I am, baby."

"Oh, I need to call Bianca—"

Ignoring the way her middle jumped into her throat, Kendall jerked around, ripping the cell phone out of the small woman's hands before she can finish dialing, jamming it under her ass and grinning smugly back at Maggie, lifting her eyebrows in triumph. "See? All gone, no more tattling on me to Binks!"

"Give it back."

"Make me—"

"You're what, ninety pounds soaking wet? I can take you—"

"Yeah, sure, shrimp—"

"Dear God, how much have you had to drink?" she breathed, horrified, and Kendall winced, feeling like the whisper had sliced her brain open, hunching her shoulders in reaction. "Give me the phone, I need to call Bianca—" Kendall gave her a slashing look, pressing one trembling palm against her forehead as she squinted her eyes in fury. "Don't you threaten me, Shrimp."

"Stop calling me that—"

"Better be careful or I'll call David and tell him you're out boozing—"

"I'm not the one smashed with a phone under my ass!" A moment of silence and Maggie screwed up her face, making an attempt to snatch her phone out from beneath Kendall and getting her fingers cracked with a shot glass in the process. "Kendall, I'm a grown woman, and I'm not the one boozing it up!"

"I'm not boozing it up!"

"Oh, Jesus—"

"I'm not Jesus," Kendall stated as she reached out and patted Maggie on the head, teetering dangerously to the side, alarming Maggie enough to move closer, ready to act as a small but efficient mattress should the skinny woman topple. "It's Kendall, with a K." She paused, blinked once, and then twice. "And… a whole bunch of other words… and a heart in there, somewhere… but I'm thinking of getting rid of that, so don't quote me."

Maggie looked around, both arms opened to catch Kendall, hoping to see some hint of someone to help her but there was no one that would be of any use, just a bunch of people now snapping pictures with their cell phones and snickering and she closed her eyes tightly for a moment, wishing Bianca was there.

Kendall was crazy, and Maggie didn't know how to deal with her, even on a good day.

Jamie was busy, obsessing about Babe, and Bianca was busy doing the same thing so, here she was, trying to get drunk enough not to care. Instead, she now had her hands full of Bianca's big sister, the crazy curly-haired one, and was unable to just turn and walk away because, damn it, this was Bianca's sister.

Damn it.

"My ass is bouncing."

"What?"

"My ass," Kendall muttered, brows wrinkled up as she looked down at herself, arms lifted up and out to her sides like a tightrope walker, and she gave a startled blink and then a startled jerk, and this time, Maggie could pick up the muffled noise of her phone. "Kendall, it's my phone, my phone is vibrating."

"Oh…"

"Give it to me."

"No, I think I like it—"

"God, you can't say that to me! Don't say that!" Shuddering at anything that Bianca's sister might be doing with anything that vibrated, Maggie reached under Kendall and pulled her phone free, slamming her thumb down to answer the call and snapping rather rudely, "Maggie Stone, what do you need?"

"Somebody's in a bad mood," and Bianca's warm laugh, playfully amused, caused Maggie to shift awkwardly, eyes flicking across the skinny form of Bianca's older sister, ridiculously smashed and heartbroken and it made the small woman wince, fingers digging into the phone harder, gripping it with a sense of familiar sympathy. "Bad day at class?"

"No, it's nothing," she muttered, and heard over the connection that noise Bianca made when she knew Maggie was lying but also knew better than to try to get Maggie to open up about it, at least for right now. "I'm just… handling a problem." She paused, watched as Kendall carefully drank another shot, swallowing it and closing her eyes, face screwing up.

Drifting a few steps away, she pondered for a moment uneasily before glancing again at Kendall, squirming, before finally settling on her decision, shoulders wilting with it. "I'm just taking care of a few things, and I'll be back soon, so don't worry about it—"

"Babe's wedding, Maggie, its tomorrow, you can't go out drinking—"

Maggie's nose wrinkled in dislike of the blonde and her cult like hold over the two closest friends she had, but she worked hard anyway not to sigh in annoyance and let the dislike slip out. "I know, Bianca, I know." She hesitated for a moment and then smiled bravely, knowing Bianca couldn't see it but could hear it in her voice, a talent that only Bianca had ever displayed to her. "I'll be there, I promise, but now I really have to go."

"Okay, Maggie—"

Maggie ended the call as she dove for Kendall with a grunt of horror.

-

David could admit it, he was hurt.

Just not out loud.

He felt quietly devastated by the betrayal, even though it shouldn't have been all that surprising, and he had an uneasy understanding of why brewing in the back of his mind, and his heart, even as worn as it was these days. He knew, at least the logical part of his brain, that she was going to do it, even if she had to tie Lavery down to do it.

But she hadn't needed to; Lavery had married her, willingly, and that somehow made the hurt even sharper to him.

Didn't make any sense, but he had found that his feelings rarely made sense.

He wasn't surprised that Greenlee wasn't even letting his words pierce her brain, too busy mooning over Lavery.

She was probably too giddy over her scheme succeeding to be capable of even forming actual words, but the quiet ache was there and the fact that she was actively ignoring him made it sharper, made it flare every so often with his bitter sense of betrayal, that she hadn't listened to him.

David knew her; better, it seemed, than she knew herself these days.

If she really thought Lavery could keep her attention for more than a month or so, she really had lost any hold she had on her sanity, and on some small and nasty level, he was pleased in the knowledge that she'd figure it out in the end, after he'd split her open and emptied her out and leave her some shell of the woman that Leo had died for, pleased in the knowledge that she'd finally figure it out, even if it took a while.

The rest of him, though, was pondering ways to commit cold-blooded murder, hopefully the most painful means he could think of.

Lavery only had eyes for Kendall Hart, and if Greenlee truly believed he would ever be capable of being happy with her, of all people, she wasn't just deluding herself, she was probably suffering some kind of hidden brain tumor, destroying her common sense in a surge of greedy selfishness to win this little battle with Kendall.

And it was a battle; that he was sure of.


	3. Chapter 3

_I'm torn and I'm tattered  
Sick and tired living my life singing the same old song  
Oh I, I feel a little battered  
Looks like I'm living my life running a one-man show  
Oh, I, I don't know where the feeling's gone  
I'll survive, I'll stay alive, I'm gonna carry on_

_I got to walk away  
I got to end this pain  
I'm gonna make it through  
See, I'm getting over you_

_- Joss Stone, 'Torn and Tattered'_

_-_

_Chapter Two_

_-_

_He had found to his great relief that when they were shopping for Miranda, Kendall didn't panic about anything._

_It was like she shifted into some kind of higher awareness, above such human things like fear or grief, utterly devoted to finding anything that Miranda could possibly need or want after her birth. If he couldn't help her, he found himself ignored at best or, at worst, trampled in her mad haste to reach whatever it was she focused on at the moment._

_It was a refreshing kind of scary._

"_What do you think?"_

_He took in the small dress of rich blues and soft cotton, considering it with as much grace as he was capable of possessing as a male, and then shrugged and she made a small noise that could have been a sigh, studying it intently. If Miranda looked like Bianca, something they were both sure of, it would look cute, he had to admit._

_But he wasn't used to shopping for dresses, even if they were for yet to be born girls._

"_I think it's good," she chirped pleasantly, beaming as she poked him in the hip with the shopping cart, dropping the dress into the growing pile of clothes and toys. He obeyed even as she turned away again, hands passing across the dresses spread before them, eyes narrowed with intensity as she gnawed her bottom lip._

"_Aren't these a little big for her at the moment?"_

_She shot him a glance that was pure Kane before shrugging slim shoulders and setting out again at a pleasant pace, long since grown used to the red wig she was wearing, something he had crammed onto her head before they got into the store. It was, surprisingly, a hell of a look, and made her look like a completely different person—which was, in fact, the reason behind it._

_Very few people seemed to know or care who he was, but she could barely go anywhere without having the press swarm, hence this plan to keep her secret identity, well… secret. She'd get to go shopping for baby supplies, and he'd get to go somewhere with her, and they could pretend, for a few minutes, that things were fine._

_Pretend that things around them weren't coming undone._

-

"You're getting quite a resemblance to Erica."

If Ryan heard her, he didn't respond, chugging down another glass of champagne at breakneck speed and wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket, shoving the glass at her for a refill. He had seemed fine an hour before, she had thought, but now he didn't seem so fine, shaking slightly as he took the glass back roughly.

"David will be able to come up with a way to break the news to Kendall and Bianca—" Greenlee started as he started chugging that one as well, only to jump back when he choked on it, twisting to give her an outright horrified look. "What do you— Hayward's not coming today!"

"I called him—"

"You what?!"

She rolled her eyes, snatching the glass from his fist and dropping it onto the nearby table, pulling them into a corner when she noticed several guests staring hard at them. "Look, I didn't tell him what happened, I swear." He relaxed the smallest bit, and she continued quickly, hoping to keep the relaxation going while she could. "I just… I was going to ask him some questions."

"Questions about the test Tad did?"

Greenlee hunched her shoulders, glaring right back at him as she poured a glass of champagne for herself, "I just… I mean… Look, I think it would be best if was let David know what we thinking for a few hours, you know?" He just stared at her and she exhaled, scowling, flipping hair over a shoulder angrily. "He's the doctor."

"Yeah, the mad doctor—"

"I really think we need to tell him."

"No," Ryan snapped, shaking his head, "no, absolutely not, the last thing we need is running to tell Bianca—"

"He wouldn't tell Bianca, he wouldn't—" She stopped, frowning, staring at him harder when his eyes darted around the room for the millionth time. "You're not going to tell Kendall, are you?" she finally hissed, and he shifted his gaze back to her, face paling as he shook his head, looking… odd. "No, I'm not."

"She can handle it—"

"No, she can't, Greenlee." When she opened her mouth, he cut her off, raising a hand to halt her. "We're not going to tell Kendall anything about this, neither of us; she can't handle it right now."

"But—"

"No buts, Greenlee."

"But, she has to—"

"I don't want anything else on her plate right now, Greenlee."

-

Bianca's screams woke her the way they did every morning— her baby sister, hollow-eyed and tiny-voiced, in that hospital bed, screaming for Miranda, begging for Miranda, pleading for Miranda, waiting for Kendall to bring her Miranda, to bring her the baby, her baby, their baby, the baby Kendall would have happily gone to Death Row for.

Kendall could handle hangovers; it was the dead babies and broken hearts that she was drowning in.

For the second time since she had woken up an hour before, Kendall's heart jerked with painful awareness, hating herself for using that word, reminding her of things that her heart wouldn't let her forget anyway, and hunched down a bit more in the passenger seat of Maggie's car, closing her eyes behind the dark glasses, trying not to focus on anything but the crooning of Thea Gilmore, whoever the Hell she was.

To judge by the music, Maggie seemed to be in the same dark place Kendall had found herself in, which was interesting, to say the least. There was no sign of anything there, on her face, but there was something, a faint something in the way she held herself, tightness to the shoulders and flatness to her movements that made something in Kendall ache in recognition.

Misery loved company.

"Bianca's going to kill us, you know that, right?"

"You're the one that fell asleep watching cartoons, not me."

"You were supposed to wake me up!"

"No, I was smashed, the waking up was your job, remember?"

They settled into an unhappy silence, bitter but desperate, the smaller woman growing increasingly tense as they got closer to the Chandler mansion, a tiny form of nerves by the time they pulled in and she parked, checking her hair worriedly in the rearview mirror before glancing sharply at Kendall. "This is all your fault," she snapped.

"I'm not listening to you, shrimp." Flinging open the door, she dragged her sorry corpse to her feet and took off angrily for the mansion, to her credit only stumbling twice, and leaving Maggie to lock her door and head to the marriage celebrations herself, muttering darkly under her breath about freakishly tall skinny women with bad love lives.

"Quite a mouth there, Dr. Stone."

Mood drastically improving in a heartbeat, Maggie whipped around, finding David looking every bit as world weary as she felt, but with a slight grin in place, enough to ease the constant ache in her heart. "I thought you weren't coming!" she grinned, already flinging her arms around him and hugging tight, reminding herself that he was flesh and blood and _there_.

"Thought better of it, and I needed to get out."

"But the Chandlers?" she asked, nose wrinkled, and he chuckled, starting them towards the massive building and tossing the small gift wrapped in red paper thoughtfully. "I don't know, I mean, they're always good for a laugh." He paused, and she felt his eyes shift to her, settle on her with unerring understand. "I think we both some laughs these days."

"Hmm," she muttered, as least an answer as she could give him, hating it when his arm tightened around her shoulders with that understanding that no one else seemed to possess. But then, she had gone to him, hadn't she? When Bianca's sobs in the next room had gotten too loud, she had gone to David's and sobbed there, wept and screamed and he had let her.

David understood.

"How are you?"

Maggie would have lied to anyone else, if only on principle. But this was David, the last link she had to Frankie and Leo, and he understood, and that meant everything she couldn't lie about. "I've had good days," she finally admitted, not letting herself look at him, adding more quietly, "and sometimes…

"Sometimes there are bad days," he finished, and she nodded mutely, heart trembling in her chest, shoulders stiffening enough that he took the warning and dropped his arm. But he didn't move away, for which she was grateful, even if she couldn't say it. Jamie offered condolences, and Bianca thought she understood but—

Lena, she thought, would have understood, would have grasped the empty ache that came from loving that baby that hadn't been rights belonged to either of them, that sudden loss that made no sense, that nobody understood even if they might have wanted to. Lena would have understood, she was pretty sure but then, Lena was gone, taking care of her mother.

Maggie wondered how often Lena cried herself to sleep.

-

The part of Bianca's heart that had escaped Michael unscathed had been lost along with Miranda.

What was left of her, worn but sincere, was caught up in ever-increasing pressures—it had been bad enough when Mom had left, fled and left them to drown alone in their grief, but now Kendall was breaking, and Bianca had lost one the anchors she had been holding onto since she had lost Miranda.

Jack could only hold her so tightly before he broke as much as the Kane women were.

As it was, Reggie was only barely managing to keep himself together, the loss of this safety he'd found seemingly too much to take at once and it was just more grief for Bianca, watching him talk just to talk, just to fill up a silence nobody knew how to deal with, wanting to be there for them, but just not strong enough to manage it by himself.

None of them were strong enough, not for this.

Ryan kept dodging her, and Greenlee looked odd, and Jack was refusing to meet her eyes and it was all she could do not to snap at them all for whatever they were keeping from her, today or all days, when she was already worried out of her mind about Babe, who kept crying hysterically, and kept saying that nothing was wrong.

People were keeping things from her, and she hated it.

-

Things felt tense, but Kendall felt oddly grateful for that.

It had been days since she had talked to JR, a rushed conversation with him over the phone on the plane ride back to Pine Valley and she felt a surge of confusing emotions as she pushed into his room, hesitating when she spotted him pacing restlessly along one side of the room. When he spotted her, however, he ended the conversation and snapped the phone closed, shifting full attention to the fragile-looking woman some feet away.

"Hey."

"Hi," she sighed, and he winced, nodding as if coming to some silent decision before he dropped the phone to the bed and came towards her, wrapping his arms around her quickly, tightly, and it was better than it probably should have been because this was JR. JR, with his bitter hurt and wounded heart, and they understood each other, shared a kind of damage that other people couldn't understand.

"I'm sorry I've been so busy," he finally murmured into her neck and she shrugged weakly, not loosening her hold on him as she stood there, stealing every bit of comfort he was offering. "I get it," she finally added when she was sure that her voice would stay steady, and smiled brightly even though he couldn't see. "You've been playing daddy."

"More than you know," he chuckled, voice lightening with giddiness and her heart clenched swiftly, torn between joy for him and her own now familiar pain, heavy and never missing these days. But he was a good father, and he loved Bess, and he would die for her and that… that she understood.

When she pulled away, he turned to the mirror nearby and started fiddling with his tie. It was further proof of their understanding of each other, him caring enough not to look at her while she gathered the tattered remains of her heart and held them close, trying to keep herself going.

And then she was fine, smoothing hands quickly down her sheathe of a dress and smiling cheekily as she grabbed him by the elbow and spun him around, reaching to adjust his already perfect tie, nudging him to be still as she tightened it one last time and finally patted him lightly on the head, nodding. "You look good, Daddy."

"Won't do to look evil," he snorted, and she grinned back, focusing on him and his familiar brittle strength rather than the newlyweds she had spotted on her way to his room, huddled close together and whispering, the sight cutting her down to her bones and leaving her bleeding silently, trembling under the weight of it.

Life wasn't supposed to hurt this much…

Love wasn't supposed to destroy you when you needed it most.

"So, what's this about Babe being a two-faced bitch?" she asked brightly, deciding that her own two-faced lover could be replaced by JR's for a few minutes and relieve her heart of it's pain, give her something to focus on other than nightmares filled with screaming and toys in her closet she wasn't strong enough to get rid of.

JR glanced at her, sideways at first, staring at her hard and weighing her and it was sad, that someone as young as he was could be so jaded, wasn't it? But then, with a short nod, he dropped onto the bed, seeming to droop with a sudden exhaustion she recognized. "I'm not going to let her take Bess," he stated and she knew that tone, had heard it in Bianca's voice when she'd been pregnant with Miranda.

"_Miranda, Miranda, Miranda—"_

She looped her arm through his, steadying herself, offering him a small but sincere grin, finally managing past her emotion, "You won't lose your little girl, not to that tramp, I swear—" No one else would have caught the brief flicker of devastated betrayal in his eyes but she was drowning in it, and it was impossible to miss, for her, whatever was left of his heart pushed too far to come back from this time. "You're right, to do this," she added, jerking her head to indicate the wedding and all of its lunacy, "and if it'll keep Bess safe, than there's no such thing as 'too far,' right?"

"No," he stated, and there was that tone again, and she smiled, heart trembling, drumming fingers slightly along his arm as she tightened herself up, bracing herself for what never left. "No, of course not," she agreed, and he nodded, understanding enough to wrap his arms around her again, anchoring her.

Misery loved company.

-

Babe couldn't hurt her; Babe was something safe, not dangerous to her heart.

Not like Kendall, so broken Bianca couldn't figure out how to put her back together again or her mother, drowning in what had been rising above her head for years before Michael had ever entered their lives or Lena, always calling and always needing and always waiting and always wanting.

Not like Maggie.

Maggie hurt her, and she didn't know how to stop it and didn't want to stop it, because at least it was something.

Maggie was into guys and yet she spent long minutes staring at her with something dark and heated in her eyes in a way that Bianca couldn't function with, being forced to leave the apartment until she was sure of her control again. She couldn't handle this now, not when she needed her rock, not when she needed Maggie to be steady and sure like she had been after Michael had ripped her life apart.

Maggie didn't want her, she needed to be sure of that but she couldn't because she felt it—

"Everybody's acting weird," Maggie muttered, eyes on Krystal rushing around, looking fluttery and panicked, and Bianca nodded absently, focusing on Babe and her veil, fitting it on because her hands were trembling the smallest bit because Maggie was standing behind her, the heat of her there even through her bulky bridesmaid dress. "Why is everyone acting like there are landmines under us?"

"It's just the wedding thing," she exhaled, catching her breath when she jabbed herself with a pin, and then suddenly swallowing when Maggie reached out and pulled the veil from her hands, and there were calluses on her fingers from all the time she spent taking notes and scribbling doodles.

Lena didn't have calluses, and neither did she; they both used massive amounts of hand cream but Maggie's hands were rough with work. They were realer than her own or Lena's, marked with evidence of her life, faint scars acting as echoes of the cats that she and Frankie had raised as girls because they couldn't deal with their mother.

"Babe, maybe you should stop crying?" There was an edge in Maggie's voice and Bianca closed her eyes against it, hating it, tired of the constant attacks that were growing every day against Babe, unspoken nastiness just because Bess had survived and Miranda hadn't. She needed Babe, needed her, and nobody understood that.

Nobody understood.

She pulled the veil back with more force than was really needed, leaving Maggie's side to adjust it into Babe's controlled blonde tresses, focusing on this small but desperately important task, using it to block out Maggie's unhappy noise and the sound the door made when it shut behind her.

Babe was safe, she couldn't hurt her.

-

Ryan was panicking.

He hated panicking, it never ended well, but here he was, panicking with increasing force. They had been lucky—Adam had been there, and knew about Tad's DNA test, but JR hadn't, which he counted as a blessing. Any idiot could see how he would have reacted, even to the suggestion, and it was one less worry on Ryan's overwrought brain.

Kendall couldn't know; she'd get her hopes up, get excited for a heartbeat before she understood that it had been a mistake, that Tad had already handled it and he couldn't handle that, couldn't see that again. He'd felt it himself, an insane giddiness at the thought of Kendall holding Miranda, the way it was supposed to have been, Kendall whole and happy and it all would have been worth it, if he could just see that.

And, God, it had been one beautiful mistake, for a heartbeat there.

The last thing he needed was David Hayward getting involved.

-

_Next, the wedding, continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

_I am standing up at the water's edge in my dream  
I cannot make a single sound as you scream  
it can't be that cold, the ground is still warm to touch  
this place is so quiet, sensing that storm _

Putting the pressure on much harder now  
to return again and again  
just let the red rain splash you  
let the rain fall on your skin  
I come to you defenses down  
with the trust of a child

- Peter Gabriel, 'Red Rain'

* * *

Chapter Three 

-

Jamie had no idea what to do.

Babe had left him.

Finally, flipping the folder closed and leaning back with a sigh, he unknotted his tie and studied the young man intently. "You'd know who I am, of course, to judge by the fact you're responsible for my nephew losing his daughter," the older man finally drawled, but he still reached up to tap a finger against the name tag the Orlando PD had given him.

"Bo Buchanan," he finally snapped, regretting the tone when the eyes of the man in front of him somehow got even harder, even stronger, even more edged.

"See, Mr. Martin, I'm getting real damn tired of people playing God with people's kids." When the young man just sat there, struggling to keep his mouth shut the way Dad had told him to—but where was Dad, anyway? He should have been there by now, shouldn't he?—the hard-eyed man narrowed his eyes, taking in the young man. "If you're lucky, we won't have to put you away for murder, but the kidnapping charges? Well, those you won't be dodging, not if my own old man has anything to say about it."

"That's Babe's baby," he blurted, but it failed to make much of an impression, the older man simply cocking one eyebrow and tapping fingers neatly against the desk beneath his palm. There was an odd silence, Jamie grasping for words and finding none—the reasoning had always worked before, hadn't it? "That's all you have to say?" Buchanan finally asked, looking faintly amused, and Jamie swallowed, suddenly feeling like he'd gotten his foot caught in a bear trap.

"That's Babe's baby," he repeated, and the officer gave a short, bitterly amused little laugh, tilting his head at Jamie as if he wasn't quite sure what of make of him. "So that, of course, makes what you and Mrs. Chandler did okay, then?" Jamie just stared, blankly, and he added more dryly, "I think that kind of throws your reasoning for the kidnapping itself kind of fly out the window, or am I wrong?"

"We had to save that baby—"

"Yes, of course, a life on the run without any kind of stability is a hundred times better than a large group of dysfunctional but loving and protective family members," he agreed in a tone that suggested that he didn't agree in the least. "I had a conversation with Ms. Kane a few minutes before I came in, and she was pretty damn informative about the Chandler family." Off the young man's stare— "Yes, she's here, got here a few hours ago with Mr. Chandler."

"Great, just what we need, Adam Chandler buying cops off—"

"Shut up," Bo said lightly, and Jamie obeyed, blinking and not knowing why he had obeyed. "I've come to the decision that Ms. Kane was right and you can't help but say really stupid things, can you?" Jamie just stared, more, and Bo Buchanan nodded, as if coming to some decision. "Therefore, I doubt that it was just you and the mother and daughter tag team that planned this little string of baby stealing, which begs the question of who was helping you three."

-

Chapter Three 

Adam Chandler looked uneasy, and if David wasn't being dragged around the mansion by a slightly deranged-looking Greenlee Smythe—she was Lavery, now, wasn't she?—he'd have found the sight of the older man skittering around downright funny.

Not too many things made him want to laugh these days.

Instead, he finally found himself shoved into an empty room of the mansion, watching with a cocked eyebrow as she slammed the door and locked it and then paused, blinking rapidly before jamming a door beneath the handle. "Greenlee—" She grunted back at him, kicking at the chair before spinning and waving wildly.

"He's already driven you to insanity, hasn't he?"

"Shut up," she snapped, and he snorted, ignoring the unwelcome twinge that her careless anger caused in him. "Look, I called because I need your help—"

"To hide his cold, dead corpse after you kill your precious new husband?"

"Shut up about Ryan, okay?" she burst heatedly, and he made a short annoyed sound, rubbing at his face as a flicker of something painful started in the back of his skull, warning him of what would be a monster if he didn't calm down. "I need your doctor brain, okay?" When he jerked a shoulder, inviting her to get her questions over with, she began to squirm slightly, gnawing her bottom lip.

"Greenlee, I'm going to leave—"

"I just want to know about DNA tests!" she blurted out, and he cocked an eyebrow, staring, waiting, as she stood there, staring right back. Finally, realizing her look for what it was— "What about DNA tests?" he asked dryly, irritation twitching vaguely along his spine at her blank look. She wasn't an idiot and already, after just a few days as Mrs. Lavery, she was acting like one.

"Are they ever wrong?"

"Greenlee, what the hell is this about?"

The small woman blanched, not meeting his eyes, which only made that twitch of irritation a more powerful jerk around his middle, furious at how quickly things were unraveling. They had been, of course, since Lavery had come back to town and she'd started acting like a bulldog in heat but now that she had succeeded in the first big phase of her little plan, she was rapidly losing those wickedly intelligent brain cells of hers.

A stupid Greenlee wasn't Greenlee, as far as he was concerned.

"Greenlee—"

"Greenlee!"

The tiny woman jumped a foot, spinning towards the blocked door, now being pounded against heatedly, and David's eyebrows shot up. "There some reason Lavery is about to burst the door down?" Greenlee flashed him an irritated look, yelling warily, "I'm not doing anything with David, sweetie—"

"Open the goddamn door, Greenlee."

There was a tone there, beneath the anger, that made David's eyebrows shoot up even higher, watching silently as Greenlee bounced worriedly on her heels, shooting desperate glances between him and the door. And David finally had enough, moving past her, dodging a grab she made for his arm and jerking the chair out from beneath the knob, swinging it open and letting a faintly dazed looking Ryan Lavery into the room.

The look Lavery gave him could have broken bones, if it had worked on him. As it was, he snorted at it, watching with narrowed eyes as that focus was then shifted to Greenlee, flustered and furious. "What were you two talking about?" he finally asked, and David snorted again, not able to help himself as he nodded lightly in Greenlee's direction. "Nothing, yet, you interrupted."

He paused, looking between frightened and angry husband and flustered wife, and asked, dryly, "Guess the honeymoon's over?"

-

Fate took pity with her, and gave her Petey to watch.

Kendall had a soft spot for the kid, and always had— he was young, but he was quirky in a way she didn't often get to enjoy. Palmer wasn't there yet, and Opal was exchanging thinly veiled disparaging comments with Mary Smythe, which somehow left Kendall to keep the boy from strangling himself with his tie.

More than that, the kid appreciated the grace of a well-snarked conversation.

She hadn't been strong enough to follow JR to the nursery to get Bess for the ceremony, no matter how much a tiny part of her ached to, and it would be a cold day in hell before she went to put flowers in Babe's hair for the wedding. This left her to glance lightly over the rest of the wedding party, finally finding a much-needed comedic relief in the youngest Cortlandt.

"I could have him killed."

"Thanks, but no thanks, kid," Kendall drawled, lips twitching despite her pain, watching as he flicked his fingers over his lapels like a gangster, shaking his head in annoyance and glancing at her again as she watched him in amusement. "I think Dad's got something planned for him," he added, grinning wickedly, and she couldn't help but grin back. "I'm just saying, nanny K—"

"I'm not your nanny—"

"Don't be silly, you're my very own hot nanny, and a boy protects his hot nanny," he added, nodding intensely, and she burst out laughing, turning away as she grabbed his jacket from the chair and helped him into it, checking it, muffled giggles spilling out every few seconds. "I don't need to be protected, kid."

"That's not what Dad says."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, heard him talking about it a few days ago, wants to have your good-for-nothing ex-boy-toy taken out back and shot—"

"Yeah, right…"

"Don't 'yeah, right' me, K, I know what I'm talking about," he confided and she blinked, slightly startled despite the fact that she knew that Palmer had a soft spot for her. "He really said that?" she finally asked, an odd flicker of something igniting in her middle, and he nodded, reaching out to give her a quick pat on the hip—a pat that came suspiciously close to her ass, she thought privately to herself, but he didn't have the excited look of a young male trying to get a grope in, so she didn't say anything.

Petey was, to Kendall's best guess, what Tad must have been like growing up, minus the Ray person she had heard about vaguely but didn't know anything about. She'd caught a mention of him several times but there had been a feel to the air that just the name brought up, and so she had never prodded, not wanting to bring up unhappy memories.

Kendall wondered what Opal thought of raising not one, but two hell raisers.

No, wait, that was three— no, wait, she hadn't raised Adrian—

"So, Dad wanted me to ask— what's the evil plan, hot nanny?"

"What evil plan?" she deadpanned, knowing it was useless but having fun with it anyway, relieved to finally be around someone she could be herself with. She had that with JR, but they needed each other, while Petey, to her great delight, didn't need much of anything from anybody.

Was it wrong that the two closest things she had to platonic soul mates were both too young for her?

-

_Kendall wasn't there yet. _

Ryan was married, had decided in no uncertain terms that he was done with her—done with the constant chaos, the unending drama, the exhaustion it took of trying to help her when all she wanted to do was annihilate herself. He had already lost too much of his life trying to save her from herself and one thing he had been sure of, the one thing he had known would have been strong enough to give her that anchor she'd never been able to find was gone.

Dead.

Miranda was dead, and any hope of Kendall finding whatever it was she was so desperately looking for, whatever it was she was willing to destroy herself to find, was gone with her. He had felt it, when he realized that he was looking at an empty incubator, and he had shuddered with the realization, and something tight in his chest had nearly killed right on the spot.

At the least, she'd devastate him in the process of finding something that had been ripped away.

At the worst, he'd have to watch in perfect Technicolor as anything that was left of her was ground away.

Life, he had finally forced himself to accept, was too damn short for that kind of life.

Still, standing awkwardly in the Chandler mansion, he worried about her.

Unhappily yanking on his tie, hating the stupid things even though he was supposed to wear them, he kept glancing in the direction of the door, listening despite himself for her voice, an assurance that she wasn't all gone yet. Greenlee kept shooting him glares, but had finally given up on capturing his attention—she was now bickering nonstop with her mother some feet away.

This left him to wait on someone he wasn't supposed to still want to wait on.

Forcing himself to shift his attention away from the door, he grabbed another cracker off the table that ran along one wall, wincing when somebody accidentally elbowed him while reaching for a shrimp. "Sorry," Palmer Cortlandt snapped in a tone that promised he wasn't sorry at all, fixing a positively lethal gaze on the younger man. Scowling, remembering the link between his ex-fiancé and the elderly man, he moved away from the table quickly, still listening for her voice.

Which was stupid, because he was done with her—even if his traitor of a heart didn't quite agree.

Tiredly, rubbing his face, he wandered around the front of the mansion, absently reaching to press a hand against his ribs, wondering if there was any chance one had been bruised. It felt like it—

It took a good minute or so to realize that he had stopped without realizing it and was listening, to his great annoyance, to Babe's voice in the next room, talking to another woman. Sighing, shaking himself, trying to ignore the itch to go check the front door again for Kendall, he turned to leave, feeling like he was intruding.

And then Babe started talking, seemingly to herself.

Heading back towards the room, frowning, he dared a glance through the doorway, finding Babe holding Bess against herself, and she looked incredibly teary-eyed, swiping at her eyes with the back of one hand. Even as he stared, growing increasingly uneasy of something he couldn't even name, she gave a ragged sniff, and shook her head, patting the baby on the back.

"Just give me a sign. Please tell me what to do, ok? Oh, Miranda…"

And his heart stuttered to a violent and incredibly painful stop.

-

Ryan didn't feel completely sane at the moment, and he wasn't enjoying it.

He'd been through a lot of emotions, since coming back to Pine Valley and out of all of that, Kendall had been the most jarring. He'd told himself that she was something he'd have to deal with; he'd braced himself for days, told himself that he was prepared to deal with her and then, she'd actually been there, flesh and blood and a bite that he liked too much to be healthy and she'd knocked him right over again.

Kendall was too damn good at breaking him down.

How he felt at the moment, though, was easily in his list of worst moments of his life, and it made it hard to breathe, almost, with the panic that Kendall would get her hopes up, that she'd think, for a moment, that Miranda was there. And then it would all come undone again, and she'd unravel and he'd rush off to try to fix her even though he knew better.

He'd stood in the background and watched Kendall and Bianca fight against the world to have Miranda, and love her. And then he'd been included, had a place in it and while that place hadn't been even remotely close to what the sisters had, it was his place. Towards the end of the pregnancy, he'd been sure that he would have a new role, the one he really wanted, playing overly-protective uncle to Kendall's overly-indulging aunt.

Him and Kendall, against the world, for Bianca and her baby.

Against the world for Miranda.

In the end, it had all come to worse than nothing.

And now, Greenlee—

"I didn't say anything," she squawked, flinging out her hands, looking offended and, for a moment, he outright hated her for it, for being offended that he was trying to protect Kendall. He stepped quickly between his wife and Hayward, blocking their connection hastily, in a frightened rush, not needing Hayward involved. "I was just having a conversation with my brother-in-law!"

"You swore—"

"Swore what?" Hayward demanded behind him, and Ryan closed his eyes, trying and failing to find patience. "It's nothing," Ryan snapped, grabbing Greenlee by the wrist and yanking her after him towards the door, shaking off Hayward's attempt to grab them both. "We're just fighting about who sleeps on what side of the bed," he added, knowing he was being harsh with Greenlee, but not caring.

Hayward would just cause more trouble, drag it up and reveal how stupid they had been for a few minutes, thinking that Miranda was alive. Bianca would find out, and she'd just be in more pain from it, and Kendall would find out, Bianca would tell her, he knew it with complete certainty. And they'd believe, before they could get the whole story out, that there was a reason to hope.

Hope wasn't worth it.

-

Kendall wasn't bitter, of course not.

Maggie was a tense form beside her, eyes locked on the form of her baby sister a few feet away, cradling Bess against her in a way that made Kendall's heart ache. But she looked okay, despite Babe's careless attitude about letting Bianca hold her, love her, as if she were her own, Babe's pity on Bianca taking physical form.

It was just another reason to hate Babe, as far as Kendall was concerned.

Even if Babe hadn't, though…

JR didn't give his heart easily; it was something he and Kendall had in common, something that people couldn't understand. People hated them for it, attacked them for it, because they didn't understand, didn't grasp why trust was something that couldn't be given just because you wanted it to be.

Life didn't work that way, and Babe had blown her chances.

Ryan had blown his chances, she added to herself, hands tightening into fists in her lap and she wasn't sure whether it was from the thought of Ryan or what was going on at the altar, Babe playing the martyr and dragging Bianca into Bess' life. Beside her, Maggie shifted awkwardly, and Kendall was finally forced to turn away from the image before her, tasting ash in her mouth.

And there he was, on the other side of the aisle, holding Greenlee's hands in a viselike grip, and he was ignoring her, she could feel it. He knew she was looking at him, he always knew when she had her attention on him, and he was ignoring her, actively ignoring her. The pain was sharp and cutting, and she swallowed, almost gagging on it as she shifted her attention to her sister again, that image not any better than the entwined hands of the newlyweds Lavery.

Worse even, in some ways.

It had all gone wrong, somehow, and it wasn't supposed to.

Miranda was supposed to be there, and she wasn't.

Worse than nothing, all of it.

She pressed her hands against her thighs, watching, growing more irritated, more frustrated, aware of Ryan pretending she didn't exist and Babe Carey, a blonde little Ryan, running through peoples' lives and destroying them with big tears and a hopeful smile, as if all that she did wasn't all that bad, and she'd hurt JR, Kendall saw it.

He was bruised from it even if he was trying to hide it, and all he had left was Bess.

Bess, who Babe was now using as a bobby prize for Bianca.

The blonde bimbo had hurt JR, another mark on her freaking bedpost—

Babe, who had been too stupid to call the hospital and instead called her last husband, Paul freaking Cramer who, to judge by that conversation that went on in the hospital, seemed to hate Babe more than anyone else. She'd stood in the background, heart bleeding as Jack asked every question, trying to find some way that Miranda could have survived.

Bigamist, slut, cheater—

No wonder the weasel hated the bitch, probably had every reason to.

Movement caught her attention, and she glanced over, regretting it when it proved to be Ryan throwing an arm around Greenlee, pulling her closer to his side, holding her hands in his palm with a firm grip. She'd known it was coming, and had caught the two of them in dumb embraces before their marriage despite Ryan's insistence they were nothing, but it proved to be her undoing.

She stood with a disgusted noise, unable to take anymore, relieved when JR caught her eye in silent agreement and, ignoring Bianca's uneasy request to come back, she fled the room where the nuptials were taking place, trembling with emotion that couldn't be expressed and finding refuge in the back garden, where she sat and stared dully at bright flowers that looked dull and lifeless.

She missed the hard stare David was directing in the direction of the newlyweds, suspicious without knowing why.

Kendall missed a lot that day; things that would have later come in useful.


	5. Chapter 5

_Life is bigger  
It's bigger than you  
And you are not me  
The lengths that I will go to  
The distance in your eyes  
Oh no I've said too much  
I set it up_

That's me in the corner  
That's me in the spotlight  
Losing my religion  
Trying to keep up with you  
And I don't know if I can do it  
Oh no I've said too much  
I haven't said enough  
I thought that I heard you laughing  
I thought that I heard you sing  
I think I thought I saw you try

- REM, 'Losing My Religion'

-

Chapter Four

-

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

Her head felt funny, and she shifted, body aching, trying to keep her eyes open and on Paul; she was tired, felt it deep in her bones and somehow even deeper, and closed her eyes for a moment, shaking her skull. When her eyes opened, though, the light in the cabin was different and she focused, with a painful throb in her head, on Paul carefully lifting Bianca from the sofa. "Paul?"

Maybe she'd made a mistake, calling Paul… "Paul, where's my baby?"

"Go back to sleep, sweetheart," and he carefully shifted Bianca's hideously limp form, carrying more of her weight as he glanced with an over bright smile at the delirious blonde sitting some feet away. "Everything's fine, I've got everything under control." When Babe just stared at him, not quite there and eyes a bit too glassy, he smiled more, as tenderly as he could, even though she should have been out now, knocked out. "Everything will be fine in a few hours, okay?"

"But… the baby… is she okay?"

"Yeah, she's fine," and he bit his cheek, hissing at himself, not just because of his slip but because the dyke was damn heavy, a long weight in his arms, and even if he didn't give a damn, she didn't look all that alive, not with how damn white she was. "Babe, you gotta relax," he coaxed, shifting Montgomery again, and Babe just stared, blearily, far more aware of everything than she should have been.

"But I thought you… can I hold her… Paul…?"

He staggered out of the cabin, pouring sweat and shaking with the effort, the last hours of emotion and work wearing at his control. But Kelly would get what she wanted; even if things hadn't worked out quite like he had hoped they would, to his great panic. But Kelly had said that any baby would work, and Buchanan just wanted a kid, didn't matter as long as he thought it was his.

And Kelly would be okay, and stop looking like she was made out of glass.

He was extraordinarily careful, laying Montgomery out because, hey, she had been through quite a bit, over the last little while, if the tabloids were right. When he got back to the cabin, however, he nearly had a stoke, finding Babe sprawled out a few feet from the baby's open incubator, completely out and wearing a look of deep confusion.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit—

Stepping over her quickly, he checked the baby, finding her asleep and sucking one small fist, apparently not bothered by the passed-out woman nearby. Closing the incubator gently, carefully not to disturb her, he crouched by Babe, sighing as he scooped her up, finding her, if possible, even heavier than Montgomery.

He wasn't quite as gentle with her and winced, checking her scalp when he let her skull crack slightly against a rock. But it was a purely absent-minded fretting— he knew what she was, even if she didn't realize it, and shifted her, laying her out in what he would bet—and was betting— would be a convincing position.

Babe destroyed everything she touched, even if she was too stupid to realize it.

It only made sense that karma should come around.

-

Once upon a time, Fusion had been her sanctuary.

These days, it was just a place where she happened to work with a woman she had once counted as a best friend, and the man who didn't love her. She had pushed it back for several more days, struggling to find a way to keep from falling apart, and had finally accepted that she had nothing left to lose.

It still stung, though, to walk into the office to find Ryan bent in conversation with Greenlee.

He shot her a look that was gratingly relieved and she ignored it, tamping it down as she shrugged out of her coat and dropped into her seat, finding her desk as unorganized as it always was, nothing moved from the last time she had gone into work. It shouldn't have surprised her, but it did, and she stared down at it all for a heartbeat, confused before she shook herself out of it.

"I was wondering when you would come back to work," Ryan remarked, and before she could stop him, he was standing beside her, hovering, dwarfing her bent form with no care for what it was doing to her. "I'm a businesswoman," she drawled, not looking at him as she started going through her belongings, sorting them out like she did every morning she came to work. "Just because the boss gets hitched doesn't mean I'm not a worker."

"Well, that's good; I don't want anything to change around here."

She forced herself to set the stapler in the corner, tamping down the savage urge to see how many staples she could get into a particular area of his anatomy. "Nothing will change, don't worry about it," she assured him, flashing him a brilliant but insincere grin. It would be fun, she knew, but it wasn't worth it, something she darkly admitted to herself as she scooped up a small bit of paperclips and dumped them into their holder. "You're still a back-stabbing bastard and Greenlee's still a short bitch with no fashion sense and I'm still the victim— See? Nothing's changed!"

She knew it had hit him where it hurt and while a part of her cringed at the slightly devastated hint of emotion in the back of his gaze, cut as deeply by his reaction as he was by her words, the rest of her delighted in it. "Good to see nothing's changed," he finally bit out, and with one last wounded glance, he went back to Greenlee, taking a seat beside her and patently ignoring Kendall.

If he thought she was going to beg, he had another thing coming—

Kendall didn't need him anymore than he apparently needed her.

-

If walking all day long with a hole where his heart used to be was coping, than Jack was coping quite well.

Jack had never really been all that thoughtful about having children when he was a boy, had never really thought of it in fact. And while his world had tilted to the side and crashed down beautifully after he had first met Erica, even then he had never given too much thought to children—even more so, he had never really given the mere thought of it any real attention.

At the moment, his heart was bleeding for his children, all of them.

Bianca was foremost in his thoughts, his niece, the daughter he and Erica's affair had cost Erica so many years before, now walking and talking and missing something that couldn't possibly be named; and there was Kendall, looking desperately hollow and now suffering yet another blow to whatever strength she had left after losing Miranda; Reggie was a tightness in his chest, and while the girls would let him hold them, offer what care he could, Reggie was trying too hard to be strong for everyone else to take any comfort for himself.

And there was Erica, never far from his thoughts and nowhere to be seen but cutting at him with her pain, wherever she was.

Jack was trying, scrambling at the crumbling ground under his feet in some attempt to hold his family together, a growing hollow in his heart warning him that he was losing that fight. Jack was losing his family, and he could see it, the connections slipping from between his fingers more quickly the harder he held on.

Sooner or later, there'd be nothing left to hold onto.

Tad, though, was offering a fragile kind of hope, and jack grabbed for it with an insane amount of greedy desperation.

"There aren't many women like Erica," he admitted, running a hand across his face, stretched out on his sofa, eyes closed and trying not to get his hopes up too high. "Exactly," Tad chirped, grinning sardonically. "She matches the description, except for the hair color—" Here Jack gave a helpless wince of the thought of his dark-haired Erica in a shade like that, and Tad nodded, finishing, "I can't be sure until I track her down, though."

"But… Vegas?"

"I know, I had the same reaction, but if it's her, at least we've got her tracked down, which was hard as Hell, let me tell you." Shaking his head, Tad took a seat beside Jack, casting a slightly worried look on his old friend. "You'd think it would be impossible for Erica Kane to disappear but it seems to be yet another of her many talents."

"Well, she's a talented woman," Jack muttered, not sure why he was defending Erica's abandonment of her family but feeling like he should anyway— simply because she was Erica, and he loved her for that fact alone. "Even if we get her back," Tad noted, voice very calm and overly pleasant, "it won't fix whatever it was that sent her running—"

"I know," Jack said hastily, and then nodded furiously to enforce his words, standing and pacing to the other side of the room, uneasy at the understanding in Tad's eyes, and frightened by it. Dixie had left Tad, and she'd never come back to him, and while that was where any similarity ended, it was enough to make the flicker of panic in Jack's mind grow a bit stronger, taunting him. "I know, but we just need her back, and we can heal, then."

Tad must have realized Jack's mental difficulties because he offered a grin, not quite real but an attempt to ease Jack's panic, chuckling as he got to his feet, "It can't be that hard to track her down and get her back; I mean, she's blonde now, and that makes it everything easier on me and Aidan."

Jack forced himself to laugh, grateful for the attempt.

Even if it didn't quite work as well as Tad might have wanted it to.

-

Kendall had talked to JR twice, since the wedding, and both had been long conversations just after dusk at her condo, him bringing a nice amount of take-out and offering a way out of sleep, a way to dodge the nightmares crying babies and broken sisters from her mind, a blessed relief from her own pain.

Cruel, possibly, that she was grateful for his pain as a way to keep from feeling her own.

Bess, though, did things to her stomach that she didn't enjoy in the least and JR had picked up on it, not bringing the little girl back with him the second time. It had been wordless and she had clung to him an extra moment or two when he'd come back the next night, reveling in the feel of someone who listened to what she couldn't even say.

Bess cut at her; sliced deep as a living, breathing sign of what she had never gotten to have.

Kendall had the sneaking suspicion that JR was focusing on her hurt as much as she was his— somehow, though, she didn't mind. She knew how he felt about betrayal, had always been aware of how frightened he was of it, building himself up only to let himself be crushed by the aftermath of one lie.

Babe had more than one lie, and JR was already buried alive beneath them.

Kendall didn't even want to think about what other lies the blonde had in her hold—and she sure as hell was trying not to think about the time Bianca was spending with Babe. Every five seconds, it seemed, there was Babe, calling Bianca, asking her to come and spend a day with Bess and her at the park… as if that could make losing Miranda any better.

Bianca was too damn good to be pitied, damn it.

When she first heard the faint sounds of female laughter, Kendall dismissed it as her own imagination, taunting her with nasty remembrances of how Fusion had been once; when she heard the baby's gurgle, quiet but somehow clear, she snapped her head from her desk before she caught herself, finding Bianca and Babe entering Fusion, pushing Bess before them as she chewed at one fist, looking around her with large eyes.

Kendall didn't need the image and she swallowed, dropping her gaze back to her desk, pushing papers needlessly and aware of the fact that she once again had Ryan's attention on her. She knew that she had never lost it, had felt him watching her as the minutes became hours, but now it was almost painful, complete and total focus on her when she wanted only to vanish, disappear into thin air until they took the baby away.

"Kendall—"

Shit—

When she looked up, massive smile firmly in place and hoping she looked as happy as possible, Bianca was almost at her desk, and Kendall swallowed, realizing that Babe and her baby were following. "I brought you something to eat," her sister explained brightly, holding up a bag of food with a playful flourish, and then dropping it neatly in front of Kendall. "I would have brought you a drink, too, but I was afraid it would get warm and I know how much you hate warm drinks."

Bianca cared, and while she seemed to be firmly determined in her idea that Kendall had started the nonsense that led to Ryan's marriage— much to Kendall's hurt—the love was there, enough that Kendall found herself blinking, filled with the warmth of it. She yanked open the bag, using it to calm herself down while she could.

"Did you bring me anything?" Greenlee asked curiously, looking hopeful. Bianca flashed her a grin so wide and brilliant that there was nothing actually friendly about it, enough edge of real dislike there to make the smaller woman blanch, looking startled by the unspoken fury. "No, I didn't know what you liked," she added brightly, tucking fine black hair behind one ear.

Ryan crossed his legs where he was sitting by his wife, looking as shocked as Greenlee did, if not more.

Kendall felt the tiniest bit vindicated, at least for a heartbeat or two.

Babe, being Babe, needed to break up the moment, neatly wheeling Bess up closer as she smiled oddly at Kendall, an insincere thing that grated on Kendall's nerves. It wasn't mean, though, or cruel or hateful but it was odd and jerky, tense with something nervous and uncomfortable. "Your sister loves you; she went to three different places to find exactly that."

"I know my sister loves me, thank you."

"Kendall…"

Mollified, and desperately wanting to preserve that warmth, Kendall snapped her mouth shut and started pulling containers out of the papers bag. Still, though— As she pulled out a Styrofoam container, she shot a glance at Babe, finding the blonde staring nervously at Ryan. A glance in his direction showed him looking mulish, fidgeting as he stared at Bess and Kendall.

Lovely, everyone just kept getting weirder.

"Do you think I could talk to Babe?" she asked curiously, adding at her sister's look, "Alone, I mean?" Her sister hesitated, looking uneasy, dark eyes moving from her sister to her friend, squirming. "I'm not sure…" she admitted and Kendall smiled a bit more happily, reaching out to tickle one of Bess's feet, earning a giggle that made her stomach flip as she added, "And you can take Bess to go see Mr. and Mrs. Lavery, show her off a bit." It worked, her sister lighting up a bit as she grabbed the stroller and made a beeline for the newlyweds, shooting one last 'don't do anything stupid' glance over a shoulder at her too-innocent-looking sister.

Her sister, however, was not good at intimidation.

Babe gave her that smile again, tight with something on edge and almost fearful, and Kendall was vaguely happy she was properly intimidating the twit, glad of it as she popped open as box and examined the fine slices of meat. "I though we needed to talk," she finally sighed, and stabbed one piece of meat with the plastic fork, looking up and favoring JR's young wife with a cheery smile. "About my sister, and about JR."

"I love JR—"

"I'll believe it when I see it." It was harsh, and she knew that, and she didn't care. Kendall was sick of it, people using your heart and leaving it bleeding, only to wonder why on Earth you find it impossible to trust that particular person again, after the insanity itself passed. "Bianca doesn't know, but I'm the one who told JR about your marriage to Paul."

That got a reaction, not just on one level but on all, Babe shifting from faintly terrified little thing to a stiff-backed woman with something almost hateful there, under the panic. Kendall, however, could handle hateful— "You had no right," she choked in a tiny voice as Kendall cocked one eyebrow at the display. "You had no right to intrude on our marriage—"

"Ah, yes… but, then, it wasn't a real marriage." Aware of the fact that Bianca was watching them uneasily again, Kendall smiled brightly back, waving with her fork and stabbed meat. "Smile pretty, blondie, if you know what's good for you." Babe sputtered a bit more but obeyed, a downright adorable mask falling over her face. "That thing you had with JR was a scam—"

"I love JR—"

"I don't see it."

"You don't know JR—"

"I've known him for years, knew him since he was a kid grieving for his mother, so don't pretend like you have a longer history with him, because you don't." It was oddly freeing, to be able to do this, meet Babe's eyes and speak, one bitch to another. Ryan had never let her do it with Greenlee, and while Bianca would have stopped her within the first few words if she knew, the feeling of self-determination was there, just beneath everything else.

Wouldn't last long, but it was nice anyway.

"I love him," she added, nodding to herself, knowing the words had come out right. "I met Dixie enough, and I was engaged to her brother if you're curious, to know that her heart got her in trouble and while JR tries to pretend his doesn't, it's the same thing with him." Pausing, hesitating, she finally nodded again, refusing to let Babe look away. "You've lied since you came to town, one after another, and when I found out Paul, I told him because I love him."

"So you break his heart—"

"I told him the truth, you doorknob, because somebody needed to." Babe looked faintly confused, and a bit pissed, so she leaned forward, trying to enforce it. "You don't want to push him, Babe, hurt him too bad because he'll take that pain, use it buy a big pretty ax and then use it to cut you off at the knees—"

"He would never hurt me—"

"Don't force him into that position—"

"But he loves me, he'd never hurt me—" She looked frantic almost, but Kendall brushed it away, trying to refocus herself, taking a long breath and letting it out. "I've heard you talk about how much you love him but look what you've done to him." It didn't sink in, Kendall saw it immediately, but she had tried, no one could say she hadn't. "I want you to be a good person, but I'm betting you're going to do something real shitty, because that seems to be your way."

"You don't even know me…"

"I don't need to, I know someone just like you," Kendall snapped, and the force behind and beneath the words, filling the words, got something of a realization, the blonde going still, reminding Kendall strongly of a bear in a trap. "I'm very angry, Babe, and you happen to have some kind of a hold over my sister and my best friend and you're using Bess—"

"I love Bess, more than you know, I love her—"

"I don't care," Kendall grated out, sick and tired of being interrupted by the woman in front of her. "If you're lying about anything, I'd highly suggest you come clean now, really because it'll come out eventually— it did the last two times you lied, when you knocked boots with Martin and married Cramer, remember?"

"Because of you—"

"You dug your own grave; I just pushed you into it." Aware of Bianca heading back over, look on her face indicating that she was sure Kendall was holding Babe hostage at the point of a spork, Kendall hurried as well as she could without losing the force behind her threats. "Just because I can't be happy doesn't mean I won't fight like hell to make sure the people I love aren't." She nodded, enforcing her words, adding, "And if you ever do anything to hurt my sister, Babe, so help me God, I will make you wish you were just dealing with the Chandlers."

And there was Bianca, looking flustered but still beautiful, apparently surprised to see no sign of blood of entrails. Passing Bess's stroller to the dazed-looking blonde, she suggested the two head out and she'd get there in a second. Babe obeyed, casting Kendall that look again, odd but not something Kendall could name.

Fear, and something else…

"I know you don't like Babe—"

"She's a liar, Binks."

"Babe's my best friend," Bianca murmured, smiling in the direction of where Babe and her baby had vanished, a giddy little thing that rolled Kendall's stomach. She should have been smiling like that at Miranda, not at Babe. "She's my best friend and you're my sister, and I love you both—"

_You love somebody you met last year as much as you love your sister?_ Kendall wanted to ask with an insane urge of bitter jealousy, biting her cheek so hard it bled to keep the words in.

"—and I can't stand the thought of you two not in my corner, together." She looked back at Kendall, and smiled, looking both worse and better than she had a second before. "She's made her mistakes, but she's in it all for the long haul, I swear." Off Kendall's doubtful glance, she bent and pressed her lips against Kendall's curls, a quick kiss of assurance. "I love you," she finally sighed, and left, casting her sister one last hopeful smile before vanishing.

Ryan was staring at her, and the warmth was all gone, faded beneath Bianca's last few words.

And her food was cold, and her day didn't get better.

-

David was hurt, and disliked it.

After half an hour, he'd finally gotten sick and ordered, and a half an hour after that, he'd simply eaten by himself, refusing to waste good food just because he was hurt over Greenlee's growing obsession. She had already married the jackass; she couldn't spare an hour of her time for the lunch she had set up?

David was hurt, and growing to be unhappily pissed off about this fact.

Greenlee had wanted to tell him something, he'd heard it in her voice and whatever it had been, it had been important to her, he had seen it on her face and in her eyes. And Lavery had stopped her, but not just stopped her, proceeded to drag Greenlee through the Chandler mansion like a child.

Granted, she was acting like a child right now, fighting over Lavery with Kendall like the twerp was a toy but still, he had hated seeing somebody treat her like that, especially when she hadn't even called the ass on it— and then attacked him for calling them both on their shitty decisions since running off to get married.

Greenlee should have kicked Lavery's ass for the way he had treated her, humiliating her.

Hart, when her heart wasn't broken, would have; and Greenlee would have, if Leo had ever treated her like that.

But then, Leo never would have treated her like that.

All around, this was something to be worried about and he knew, right down into his bones, that this would end in anything other than marital bliss for all three of the idiots involved—and, yes, Greenlee was an idiot, clearly, seeing as how she had started all of this nonsense in the first place.

David just didn't like seeing Lavery treat her like an idiot in public.

He paid, staring so hard at the waiter without realizing it that he nearly gave the poor young man a heart attack, and headed for the door, forced to admit despite his mood that the meal had been worth it. He didn't cook much for himself, and when he wasn't nourishing himself on hospital coffee and stale waiting room food, he was managing with take-out and entirely too much dried cereal to be healthy.

It was while going through the door that he crashed into Krystal Carey, decked out in a green dress that blinded.

He didn't like her— but then, he didn't often like people like her, the kind of person who would use their child to get themselves something. His own mother had excelled at the ability, and while Babe Carey irritated him possibly more than was understandable, he couldn't help but feel faintly sorry for the young woman—anyone who looked at Krystal Carey should have been able to see that this woman wasn't the proper material to raise a child.

Well, except for Tad Martin, who seemed to be disturbingly fascinated by the woman in front of him.

If Dixie had a grave, she'd be rolling in it, he was sure of that.

"I didn't think I'd see you here," he sighed, and she gave him a look, eyes flicking up and down his form in a way that would usually have left him feeling hopeful for the night ahead as a grown man who happened to be single. When she did it, however, he just had an insane urge to run home and shower—which was something he'd never really experienced before.

David liked sex, and she had just made him feel dirty.

The second time she did it, he slapped a hand down on the counter where she was leaning, interrupting her perusal. He wondered what Martin would think, if he found out she was apparently interested in him. However fun it might be, though, he didn't have time for it— he still needed to figure out a way to save Greenlee from her own insanity.

"Babe got me a reservation, for my birthday," the woman laughed brightly, earrings jingling as she flipped a few times through the leather-framed menu, frowning at the French and dropping it to the counter with a wrinkle of her nose. "She's busy with my grandbaby and Bianca, but she says she'll be here soon."

Aw, yes, clearly, this woman was a wonderful mother, using her daughter as a piggy bank.

When the waiter came, he took his chance, slipping past the woman and out into a warm and getting warmer day, wincing as he rubbed his eyes at the change in lighting. He checked the phone, one last time, but no one had called since five minutes before, enough to make him glare at it as he headed for his car, something bitter at the taste of his mouth.

Leo, too, was no doubt rolling around in the grave he didn't get the chance to have. 


	6. Chapter 6

_AN: God, this show freaking sucks these days._

_-_

_I hope you're doing fine out there without me  
'Cause I'm not doing so good without you  
The things I thought you'd never know about me  
Were the things I guess you always understood_

_As the days grow long I see  
That time is standing still for me  
When you're not here_

_- 3 Doors Down, 'Here By Me'_

_-_

_Chapter Six_

_-_

_Too many things had happened in the boathouse over the last few months but here they were, her and her best friend, slipping up the stairs, her feeling horribly, achingly breakable. But JR looked odd, seemed too chipper, and that grated against her own emotion, making her watch him carefully as he moved past her and dropped onto the bench, rubbing his face._

_"Thanks for, um—" She hesitated, gestured back vaguely in the direction of the penthouse, managing a weak but real smile and he shrugged, shaking his head. "The last thing you need is to stay there and dwell on the fact that he's married to someone else."_

_It felt surreal, to even think about it— but there it was, Ryan had married Greenlee._

_Promised to stand by her, through sickness and in health, for richer or poorer—what a fucking crock that was, considering the excuse they were using to tie the knot in the first place. Promised to honor her, and love her, and to stand by her._

_He had promised her the same thing, but… but it was different, and it was a different that broke her._

_Why people wanted love so damn much confused Kendall._

_"I feel kind of dumb now, pushing you to go after him…"_

_She managed a tiny laugh, wrapping her arms around herself and looking out tiredly at the lake, shaking her head. "Not your fault, I was the one stupid enough to think he believed it, right?" She could feel his care, and she clung to it as she dropped onto the bench beside him, smiling weakly at him. "We can be bitter together."_

_"I'm marrying Babe."_

_"Or not," she stated, blindsided. "What do you mean, marrying Babe?" she prodded long minutes later when he just sat and stared out at the lake blindly. "Like I said, I'm marrying her, that's all." It didn't look like that was all, not with that carefully blank look on his face. "I thought you were throwing in the towel?"_

_"I love her."_

_It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't a happy truth, not to judge by the hard look in his eyes and tense shoulders. "I love Bess, Kendall, and I'm not going to let anything happen to her, okay?" She licked her lips, studying him, taking her friend in— it was far better than thinking of the newlyweds on their way back to town. "JR, you're Bess's father, you two splitting up wouldn't change that."_

_"Unless she's not mine."_

_"What?" she asked blankly, grief forgotten in her confusion, breath catching in her throat at the look he gave her, something that went so far beyond desperation there wasn't even a word for it. But she had seen it before in Bianca's eyes when her sister had slid her palms across her swollen belly, seen flickers of it in her mother's eyes when Erica had saved her from Michael, seen it in her eyes when she looked in the mirror during that trial. "I can't lose Bess, Kendall."_

_"It's okay, you won't—"_

_"I have to go," he said thickly, but she jumped up fact, throwing herself into this emotion he was suffering beneath. "JR, Bess is yours, it doesn't matter what any test might say and, besides— I mean, she's yours, the test said so, remember?"_

_"A cop from Llanview was by yesterday, Kendall, wanted to ask us questions about Paul Cramer—"_

_Ugh—_

_Paul fucking Cramer, Babe's precious first husband, the guy who had apologized so intensely in the hospital for losing Miranda, as if he actually cared about her and her sister. She'd ratted him out, grabbed JR and told him because, damn it, JR deserved knowing the truth, however painful it might be to hear._

_He was the last thing she needed to hear, and she bit her cheek, taking a ragged breath and letting it out. "What's the matter with him, what?" He jerked his head in some vague backwards direction, making a short and disgusted noise under his breath. "He went missing a few days ago, and they wanted to see if we had seen him."_

_"Oh… oh, but… what does this have to do with—" Kendall caught his look then, the fear that was taking over his face, and closed her mouth, startled into silence with one last quiet murmur of understanding. "You think Bess is his?" she finally asked softly, and knew it was a useless question. "Oh…"_

_"If he takes her…"_

_"It's okay," she blurted out hastily, awkwardly laying a palm on his arm, suddenly desperate that it would be okay. "The only thing that matters is Bess," he stated, and there was that emotion was again, bringing with it memories of her mother and Miranda and her baby sister, of the way things were supposed to be. "I have to go," he repeated and she dropped her hand, nodding dumbly._

_She stood awkwardly as he moved away, waited—_

_"I'll call you," he said back, pausing on the bottom step and the relief she felt was almost staggering, something to focus on other than dead babies and business marriages that broke her heart. Bess was alive, a thing of flesh and blood that couldn't hurt her, and JR was a friend, and she trusted him._

_"I'll be waiting for you."_

_-_

Jamie was, except for Bianca, Maggie's best friend.

He was, at times, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he seemed to genuinely care about her, and really want what's best for her. Bianca was acting oddly, was missing their lunch meetings and their plans to go shopping, and was even ducking out of their talks, and it left Maggie reeling at the feeling, aching for her friend.

Jamie was also the most pitiful excuse for an adult she had ever met.

She couldn't even acknowledge him as an adult in her mind, could only handle him as an over-sized boy in a nicely toned body, and he acted like it— ate off her plate when she looked away, cracked dirty jokes during old movies, and would spend a scary amount of time playing video games and watching cartoons.

And tried to imply that she cared more about Bianca than she actually did.

What Jamie didn't comprehend was that she wasn't gay— she didn't walk around whistling at women, or leer at them, or watch them. Sure, boys weren't always the best choice, but she wasn't gay, and she was getting real damn sick of Jamie's slightly teenage attempts to paint her as a lesbian.

How she felt about wasn't any of his business, anyway.

"I made you mad, didn't I?"

Maggie gave a short grunt, swiping up a nice bit of ketchup with a fry and popping it into her mouth quickly. "You just have to eat the fry, Maggie, not shred it," he muttered, and she gave him a look, although she slowed her angry chewing a bit, mollified by his vaguely wounded air.

At least he wasn't going on about how weird Babe was acting, which was a blessing.

"I just… think you and Bianca should talk," he said suddenly, and she flung down a fry, scowling at him darkly, a harsh enough stare that he blanched, laughing, as if trying to ward her off. "Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to walk in while you two are giving each other longing glances?"

"Shut up, James."

"I'm trying to help!"

"Bite me." She was in a foul mood, and knew it, but Bianca was as obsessed with how Babe was acting as Jamie was, and she'd been kept up all night as her friend brainstormed why the blonde was acting so odd. Maggie herself didn't care all that much, especially not since it was taking up all of her study time these days.

Not to mention her sanity.

"I'm worried about Babe—"

"Okay, fine, let's talk about me and Bianca," she laughed, and he gave her a look, hang-dog look in full effect. "Jamie, please, I don't want to talk about the torrid lives of two brothers and a skank, okay?" If it was anyone else, he would have gotten pissed off; as it was, she got a dirty look, and a scowl. "I'm worried about her, that's all."

"I think you've done enough of that for one lifetime."

"She's my sister-in-law, Maggie."

"And you're telling me you just care about her in a sisterly fashion?"

Jamie's blush was answer enough. "I just… I don't think JR's good enough for her, that's all."

"But it's none of your business."

"That's what my dad says."

"Your dad's right."

"What if it was Bianca?"

She froze in the act of eating a fry, eyes flying up. "What?" she asked blankly and he sighed, repeating, "Just, what if it was Bianca, acting weird? What if you were worried about her?" She shook her head, no longer hungry, uneasy since damn it all to hell, Bianca was acting oddly. That was to be expected, though, she'd lost her baby. David still didn't seem to be okay since he'd lost Leora, so God only knew how long Bianca would take to grieve.

Except, she didn't seem to be grieving, so much as obsessing.

Obsessing, over Babe.

Jamie thought it was jealousy, but he didn't get it— it was off, the way Bianca acted when Babe even got mentioned, to say nothing of Bess. Her hackles went up, and she got downright crazy about the blonde, and to Maggie's worried mind, it made no sense. It had come out of nowhere, and she had even brought it up to Bianca's therapist, unnerved by the intensity of it.

The therapist hadn't taken it seriously.

This left her looking like the jealous want-to-be girlfriend, which was the last thing she needed.

"Bianca's not my Babe," she snapped, pushing food around, "and Bianca's not Babe, so I think you should get the blonde out of your system, and go play with your niece, I hear she's adorable." She stood up abruptly, grabbing her bag and gifting her friend with a massive smile, knowing it looked phony but no longer caring. "Bring home a doggie bag!"

And she fled, unable to do anything else.

-

Palmer Cortlandt, much like Adam Chandler, was an old bastard.

Staring at him, a tiny part of Kendall worried. He didn't look as healthy as he should have, and his hands shook faintly, enough that her heart stuttered the smallest bit in her chest. But his eyes were still sharp with a wicked kind of intelligence, and his humor was still edged in the pride no one had ever been able to strip him of.

Palmer, at least, appreciated her Kane spunk, as he called it.

"Are you trying to woo me?" she asked dryly, indicating the wine before them and he gave her a smug little grin, toasting her elegantly before tossing it back, a hint of something that had to come from his roots flaring in the faintly careless movement. They had talked about it once, where he had grown up, and he'd manage to pull something of her childhood out of her— trips away from the Florida coast when storms came barreling in, the unending horror of the mosquitoes at dusk, and the fact that she was unwilling to go back.

She had been back, and it had been awful in some painful way, too much progress being forced into too small an area, setting her teeth on edge and her heart sore. All that was left, from her quick trip back just a year or so before, was the remains of her home state, something Palmer had actually seemed to understand when she shared it with him over escargot some months after the visit.

Palmer actually seemed to like her, not because he was supposed to, but because he chose to.

"My dear, if I were a few years younger, I would have you." She cocked an eyebrow at him, disbelieving, but he just stared back and she flushed, covering it with a quick sip of the wine. "Sadly, however, I will make do by living vicariously through that monkey of a man, Lavery." Off her look, he gave a short snort— "He'll come crawling back, my dear, if you give him reason to."

"Gee, thanks."

"You miss my point," he sighed, and gave a very small but very smug smile, lifting one eyebrow. "I didn't bring you here to insult you, my dear; I brought you to here to talk, Cortlandt to Kane, the way it should be." Another look from the curly-haired woman, and his grin broadened, reminding her forcefully of something with teeth and claws and an intelligence that didn't lessen with age. "Your mother's having a temper tantrum, it seems, and Bianca has her hands more than full which you leaves you to be dealt with."

"I'm supposed to be 'dealt with'?"

"Hush, and let me talk." It was such a line, really, an order given with complete certainty that it would be followed and if anyone else had given it, she would have started flinging barbs, just because. But it was Palmer, and she trusted him— he would have kept her and Bianca safe, until Miranda was born, and he would have done it without hesitation because, old bastard or not, when you had him in your corner, you were set for life.

"I've been looking at this entire mess of a romantic entanglement and reached my own decisions." He poured her more wine, nodding to himself. "Lavery's a fool, but he's a fool in denial, and he's in denial that he's in denial," he added dryly, looking extremely irritated as he nodded at her to take her wine. "The more you chase him, the more he's going to decide he doesn't want you, and the uglier it's all going to get."

"I don't want him," she ground out, hating when her voice trembled the smallest bit. "He chose her over me, so why would I want him?" she demanded quietly, and he snorted, shrugging. "You love him, which leaves you at the distinct disadvantage." She opened her mouth, and he held up one finger in a 'hush' gesture that, again, she found herself following. "You're emotionally vulnerable right now, and you'll be the one to break and beg for forgiveness."

"Gee, thanks—"

"Unless you're not."

She blinked, and then cocked one eyebrow in a perfectly formed 'excuse me?' stare, a strong enough stare that he gave a chuckle, and smirked slightly. "You have to make him beg for it, my dear, work himself to get you back." He nodded very distinctly towards a couple some feet away, giggling in a way she and Ryan never had, in a way that Ryan and Greenlee always did when he walked in on them. "That, right there, is a lie.

"You don't believe in love?"

"Love's painful, and harsh, and it leaves you bleeding— and that's what makes it so fun, really." He stabbed an olive off of his salad, grinned slightly. "When you win at it, it means something, and when you beg for it, it isn't quite so satisfying." He paused, and stared at her, really watching her with a true respect. "I hate to see a Kane woman beg, dear."

"I'm not going to beg—"

"Well, not if I have anything to say about it you're not," he agreed, and she couldn't help it, she snorted with laughter, shaking her curls out of her face. "That's what everybody wants me to do, you know, beg for him to forgive me, beg me to take him back, and all I want to do is shove my stiletto right up Greenlee's—"

"No, my dear; then Lavery would hang that over your head, insisting he can't love someone who can't forgive."

"He's already said that."

"Then I don't have to tell you I told you so." He heaved a sigh at the way she shuttered her gaze, dropping her eyes to her plate. "You're dealing with a lot of pain right now, Kendall, and as much as he loves you— He does love you, I know that," he added at her doubtful look. "As much as the idiot wants you, he's made the kind of mistake that makes him not worthy of a Kane woman, at least not right now."

"You think he doesn't deserve me?"

"Not right now, not as far as I'm concerned. Kanes are like Cortlandts, neither of us are creatures that are born to beg, and no one should make us." He nodded to her plate, silent until she went back to her meal, "And if someone doesn't get that, what people like us are, then we need to teach them— if needed, by any means possible."

"I'm getting advice from you? Didn't you lock your wife in an attic or something?"

"Daisy and I had an intense relationship, my dear, and she got me back as much as I got her, that's what made her my match." He paused, tapped a finger against the table thoughtfully. "He's your match, he just doesn't accept it yet, he's too much of a coward right now… That's why he went for a poor man's Kendall Hart."

"Greenlee's a poor man's me?"

"Yes, and when it comes to Lavery, I suggest you take my one piece of advice."

"And what would that be?"

"Simple… ignore him, and let him suffer for a while."

_- _

The scent was wrong. 

_It was too sweet and too sour at the same time and he shifted, pulling his face away from the pillow and fiddling with it, attention still focused on the feel of imaginary palms against his neck, cradling his neck, nails pricking his skin. The smell was wrong, and the movement to escape it didn't help, pushing him further out of his sleep as he slapped at the pillow dumbly, stupidly, trying to make it right._

_Settling back in, he forced the growing awareness away, trying to keep hold of soft skin and warm breath, tugging the warm body close to him, lean lines of frail grace, fitting their bodies together until it felt right again. It was nerve-wracking, though, the way she kept twisting in his grip… he couldn't keep a hold of her._

_Ryan tugged again at the next violent twist of panic in his chest, feeling bare legs tangle with his own, sliding hands hastily across her body in a desperately soothing gesture, wishing she'd stop trying to slip out of his arms. She'd always been a runner, but this was different, and it left him floundering, dazed and confused at what he was supposed to do._

_Gillian had never fought him like this._

_The thought brought a sudden sharp pain to him, and she shifted out of his abruptly loosened hold, almost disappearing before he managed to catch her and pull her back, threading fingers through curls and crushing his mouth against hers. For a heartbeat, he felt hips moving against his in perfect unison before she twisted suddenly, leaving him grabbing at her retreating form, snatching at bare fingers—_

"Ryan!"

His eyes flew open, his head snapping up from the pillow to take in a frustrated-looking Greenlee, jerking her head back at the open bedroom door. "What are you doing out here?" she demanded, snatching the pillow from under his head and whacking him with it, looking disgusted. "We have to sleep together, remember?"

"I doubt anyone's going to install cameras into my penthouse," he snapped, irrationally desperate to fall back to sleep. He didn't know what he had been dreaming about, but it had been good, or at least had a good edge to it. He yanked the pillow back, knowing and hating the fact that he was completely awake now, the exasperation pushing him into alertness. "I'm going back to bed."

"But you're not in bed, Ryan—"

He pulled the pillow over his head, his neck and back aching after the last restless night on the couch, and clamped his eyes shut tightly, trying to push himself back into unconsciousness. "I'm sleeping out here, I need to think," he finally sputtered, feeling suddenly guilty and pulling the pillow down to stare at her, standing with her arms crossed in her pink robe.

It almost looked like the one he had brought Kendall for her birthday—

"What time is it?" he asked abruptly and she shrugged, looking like a pouting child. "Sun's about to come up and you're perched out here like an idiot." She stomped away, vanishing into the bedroom and calling back heatedly, "If we get caught for fraud, it's going to be your fault."

"I needed to sleep out here, for my back." That was a lie, at least to judge by the fact that his back and neck felt worse than they had in the last few months. "If your back hurts, I can give it a massage," Greenlee noted, popping her head back out and smiling in a way that made his eyes fly open wide in alarm. "I'm fine, Greenlee."

"If you say so, hubby."

He was getting sick of being called "hubby," too.

-

Bianca cut at her, but she gritted her teeth and pushed through it.

Babe found herself thinking of Kendall, sharp and harsh and heartbreaking, hated because of who she was, and stuffed more of her pancakes in her mouth, knowing anything would be better than that. And JR loved Bess, at times with an almost frightening intensity, and Babe felt at times safe in the assurance of that, his love for not only Bess but also her herself.

JR loved her, and Bess, and that made it okay.

Even more, Bianca loved her.

At the moment, Mira- Bess was settled in Bianca's arms, chewing one fist sleepily as Bianca whispered into her ear, full grin on the other woman's face. She had called Bianca and dropped the baby in her best friend's arms instantly, leading them all out to the garden to talk.

"I don't think you have anything to worry about, Babe," Bianca said finally when Babe stopped talking, shifting the baby in her lap and making a face. "Kendall and JR, they've been friends for years, it's nothing to worry about," she repeated, and reached across the table to squeeze Babe's hand with a reassuring smile.

"But—"

"Kendall needs a friend right now," Bianca sighed, and Babe winced in response, nodding mechanically. It seemed harsh, to do what Ryan had done, and then to have all of it splattered across the tabloids like that? It brought her guilt to the fore, and Babe hated guilt— people who spent their time feeling guilty didn't last too long in the world.

Mama had taught her that early on, and it was a lesson never forgotten.

"What if she and JR— I mean, she wants to make Ryan jealous, right?"

"But she wouldn't use JR," Bianca stated calmly, shaking her head in a final sort of movement. "Maybe someone else, she gets angry when she gets hurt, but she wouldn't use JR, you don't have anything to worry about, okay?" When Babe just continued to sit there and look like she was five seconds away from bursting into tears, Bianca smiled more brightly, an attempt to soothe her friend. "Every time I turn around, they're talking on the phone or going out to dinner or—"

"I think you're just feeling guilty about Jamie," Bianca drawled, carefully untangling the baby's fingers from her hair, and bouncing her a bit more in her lap, a playful jiggle that made the baby gurgle in delight. "And you have no reason to, not really. I mean, you came clean about it, and you feel horrible about it, and JR's forgiven you."

"But—"

"Everything is just fine."

-

Greenlee couldn't walk fast enough.

It was a throwaway thought as he strode into the Fusion offices, listening to her rush after him, heels clicking too quickly after him. Kendall had never had that problem, had long legs that carried her easily across cement or wood, moved her with a quick grace that he picked up every once in a blue moon in Bianca's.

Amazing, how a tiny thing like Erica could have two super-model tall daughters.

"You're like the Jolly Green Giant," Greenlee laughed, jogging up to meet him, sliding a arm through his halfway before he shrugged it away with an uneasy jerk of his shoulder, not quite aware of the movement as he searched and found no sight of Kendall for the third day in a row.

"If we're lucky, she fell into a mine," Greenlee snapped under her breath, dropping into her chair and he shot her a half-hearted glance, glad when she flashed him a guilty look, missing the roll of her eyes when he turned away again, glaring at Kendall's desk like it was all the desk's fault she wasn't there.

"Where is she?" he demanded harsh enough that he got a downright nasty look from Simone, waving her drying nails through the air. "She left a while ago, ran off to have dinner with—" Ryan didn't hear the rest, disgusted, leaving the main office and heading to his own, wincing silently when Greenlee came rushing after him. "Ryan!"

"I need to do some things," he muttered, trying to shut the door before she could follow him, and exhaling quietly when she came darting in a split second before it clicked close. "Greenlee—" It would be like Kendall, to run off, and leave Simone to taunt him with it, but it still stung, and it shouldn't have, since he knew better than to let it.

"You can't freak every time she runs around with some other guy, Ryan."

"I'm not freaking," he snapped childishly, dropping behind the desk and digging his cell phone out of his pocket, itching to dial the number he had erased but still knew by heart. "Ryan—" When she went to grab it out of his hands, he yanked it towards him, snapping it closed and scowling. "I know, I know, I got it!"

"You're letting her get to you!" his little wife huffed, moving around the desk and dragging the chair with her, dropping into it with a sigh. "You think this is an accident? No, Ryan, she's trying to win!" She got an odd look, and shrugged, flashing him a large smile. "You two are toxic to each other, you know that."

"Yes, but—"

"Let her run around and get her booty calls—"

"I don't think she should be dating right now," he burst out, jerking his chin at the closed door. "I mean, I don't think it's good for her to go out with someone—" And before she could stop him, he was dialing her number in furiously, nodding, sure of the fact that he was right— "Hello?"

"Who is this?" Palmer Cortlandt snapped, and Ryan blinked, baffled, thrown again. "Palmer?" he asked warily, and got a snort in answer, the elderly man sounding downright threatening over the connection. "Lavery! I know that voice— What the Hell's wrong with you, boy, calling a woman when I'm taking her out?"

Oh, God, he didn't need that image. "I'm sorry, I thought—"

"Go buy your little poodle of a wife something!" the elderly man barked, and promptly hung up on him.

"What's the matter, Kendall pulling her usual?" Greenlee sighed, pulling the phone out of the dazed-looking man's hands and he blinked again, still trying to put it together. "She was out with Palmer," he finally said slowly, and when she stared, confused, he repeated, "Kendall, she went out with Palmer— oh, God, do you think—"

"Shut up, that's disgusting." She set his phone down beside her, shaking her head. "Don't be silly, he's like her daddy— Oh, Ryan, no, not like that!" She shrugged as lightly as she could, flashing him a brilliant smile again, big and bright. "She probably ran off to get sympathy from him, you know her."

"Yeah, but—"

"She's not worth your worry, Ryan—"

"But—"

"She's not good enough for you," she stated, staring at him so hard that for a minute, he actually believed it.

-

Miranda had been loved.

Kendall had shed her heels and moved the last little bit more carefully, beginning to shake as she caught sight of the first teddy bear decorating Miranda's makeshift memorial. She didn't want to do this, desperately didn't want to, but she needed to, felt compelled to and so here she was, stepping cautiously towards the only real thing she had left of her dead niece, toys and flowers by a river.

When she saw the first bouquet, she nearly ran for her life.

It was warm already but it didn't feel like it; it felt cold in an empty way, as if winter had stayed too long before leaving. She cautiously stood where she was, staring at the wide assortments of gifts, finding none of them gave her what she wanted. Her throat was tight and she couldn't see but she refused to move her eyes from the gifts, refused to shift her gaze to the river.

The river, where Miranda had—

Kendall had drifted before in her life, had clawed for a foundation, but this was nothing like she had felt before, and couldn't describe. This was a hollow where Miranda had been that would never be filled, and the fact that Ryan couldn't get that, that none of them could get that— "I'm tired," she whispered, and dropped onto her ass, exhausted suddenly and unable to pull herself back up. "I can't be here," she told herself raggedly, but she couldn't get up, couldn't do anything but sit there and stare blurrily at her niece's gifts.

She couldn't do this, she didn't want to do this, and she couldn't—

She had cried so much since the storm; shouldn't she have run out of tears by now?

"Kendall?"

She closed her eyes for a moment, tried to get to her feet and found she couldn't, not that she was surprised. Blinking desperately, she tilted her head back to find tiny Maggie Stone staring down at her worriedly, a bouquet of irises in her arms. "Did you trip, or…" and she trailed off, looking too understanding in her silence.

"My knees went out, or… something, I think," and she couldn't help the fact she sounded like an idiot.

"Oh," Maggie said, and nodded as if it made perfect sense. "I'll just…" and she trailed off again, turning away to settle the bouquet with loving carefulness among the others. There was an odd look on her face, closed off but not completely, as if she had been caught doing something horrible and wasn't sure how to defend herself.

"Irises?"

"I read somewhere that they meant hope," Maggie mumbled and she had started to bob her head in a decidedly Jack fashion, smoothing fingers furiously across bright purple petals. "Probably a bit bright for a little girl, but I think she'd like them, a Kane and all—" and Kendall closed her eyes and swallowed, not sure whether she hated or loved the image the words gave her, the Kane women, together, all of them.

"Kendall?"

"It's not supposed to be like this—"

"I know," and somehow Maggie did, standing there with overly bright eyes and a trembling lip. "I know," she repeated, and her voice caught but it didn't matter because she was sinking down to settle at Kendall's side, picking at her jeans with slightly shaky fingers. "I know, Kendall—"

Silence except for the river, sounding grotesquely peaceful after everything it had taken from them.

Kendall had lost count of how many times Ryan had told her he understood, told her that he knew, and it had only angered her more because he didn't, he couldn't possibly. He hadn't felt the kicks against his palms or the certainty that, even if he went to Death Row, it wouldn't matter because the only thing that did matter was Miranda. He didn't know, he couldn't, and—

Kendall had never liked Maggie all that much, not really. The tiny young woman was irritating in a familiar way and too harsh for her own good. She'd been cruel to her before, but she understood, she got it and she didn't have to insist that she did. She said the words and nothing else and meant everything that words couldn't say. Fat red crayons the first day of school that would never be used and Christmas presents that would never be given and hugs and kisses that would never happen—

"Kendall—"

"I know," she said, and meant everything she couldn't say.


End file.
